Caring for one’s spouse as one would care for oneself makes it possible to fulfill the purpose of marriage, described earlier in this same chapter of Ephesians, which is to love your wife “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (vv. 26–27).
